Thursday, February 28, 2013

Voyages of Discovery

One could say that most of our ancestors were seafarers
of a fashion, some sailing in canoes, vaka, drua; some sailing on naval vessel,
merchant marine ships, and some sailing on coolie transport ships of the
British indenture system.

Since I was a child, perhaps because of our being a south
sea Island nation, I have always been fascinated with explorers and adventurers
such as Columbus, Cook, Tasman, Bligh (explorer by accident), da Gama,
Shackleton, and for some reason Thor Heyerdahl.

The late Thor Heyerdahl (1914 – 2002) was a Norwegian
ethnographer and adventurer. He achieved world-wide fame when in 1947 he and
his small crew sailed 8000 kilometres from Peru to Raroia atoll, Tuamotu
Archipelago (in Maohi Nui / French Polynesia and the largest chain of coral
atolls in the world), in an indigenous Peruvian balsa-wood raft. This 101-day
voyage proved his theory that it was possible for ancient native South
Americans to have travelled to Polynesia using the favourable currents.

In 1952 he led an expedition to the Galapagos
Islands (where the crew of the Uto Ni Yalo also visited early last year),
rediscovering the guara, a
traditional navigational tool used by ancient seafarers of Ecuador and Peru
South American and proving that these voyagers of long ago had the means to
navigate as well as travel great distances in the Pacific. The guara would be
used by his grandson in 2006 when aboard a similar raft, the Tangaroa
(Polynesian god of the sea) he and his crew sailed to Raiatea in Maohi Nui.

After leading an expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
in 1955-5, in 1969 and 1970, sailing under the United Nations flag with a crew
of seven men from seven different countries, Heyerdahl made two attempts on
boats made out of papyrus (Ra I, made from material from Lake Tana in Ethiopia
and constructed by boat builders from Lake Chad) and totora or nga'atu (Ra II made from reeds from Peru
and constructed by boat builders from Lake Titicaca) to sail across the
Atlantic Ocean from Morocco to Barbados.

While the voyage of Ra I failed some distance from its
objective, the voyage of Ra II was successful, crossing the widest part of the
Atlantic 6100 km proving that modern science under-estimated long-forgotten
aboriginal technologies. The theory that Mediterranean vessels built prior to
Columbus could not have crossed the Atlantic was thrown on its head.

In 1978 Heyerdahl embarked on the Tigris, expedition which
was intended to demonstrate that trade and migration could have linkedMesopotamiawith
theIndus
Valley Civilizationin what is now modern-day Pakistan. Constructed out
of reed again, the Tigris was built in Iraq and sailed with its international
crew through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and made its way into the Red Sea.

After about 5 months at sea and still remaining
seaworthy, theTigriswas deliberately burnt inDjibouti,
on April 3, 1978, as a protest against the wars raging on every side in theRed
SeaandHorn
of Africa. In his Open Letter to the UN Secretary-GeneralKurt
Waldheim, he explained his reasons:

“Today we burn our
proud ship... to protest against inhuman elements in the world of 1978... Now
we are forced to stop at the entrance to the Red Sea. Surrounded by military
airplanes and warships from the world's most civilized and developed nations,
we have been denied permission by friendly governments, for reasons of security,
to land anywhere, but in the tiny, and still neutral, Republic of Djibouti.
Elsewhere around us, brothers and neighbours are engaged in homicide with means
made available to them by those who lead humanity on our joint road into the
third millennium. To the innocent masses in all industrialized countries, we
direct our appeal. We must wake up to the insane reality of our time.... We are
all irresponsible, unless we demand from the responsible decision makers that
modern armaments must no longer be made available to people whose former battle
axes and swords our ancestors condemned. Our planet is bigger than the reed
bundles that have carried us across the seas, and yet small enough to run the
same risks unless those of us still alive open our eyes and minds to the
desperate need of intelligent collaboration to save ourselves and our common
civilization from what we are about to convert into a sinking ship.”

Despite the criticisms Heyerdahl faced for his theories -
that migration to Polynesia had followed the natural North Pacific conveyor,
from east to west, rather than conventional theories of a west to east
migration and settlement of the Pacific – he has always been my favourite
adventurer/explorer.

His comment about the Pacific, made in 1947 as he explained
his theory before the Kon-Tiki expedition, that “the ocean is not what
separates these people but joins them,” is a deep statement not just about migration patterns but about
our unity as a people of the ocean.

I am sure that any of the sailors who have voyaged on the
Uto Ni Yalo can vouch for this from their own experience.

In 1934, on the 35th anniversary of the
Kon-Tiki expedition, Heyerdahl said:

“Some people
believe in fate, others don't. I do and I don't. It may seem at times as if
invisible fingers move us about -like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are
not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our
course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown."

Sometimes we are so connected to the fixed, rootedness of
land and material possessions, that we often cannot let go in order to grab the
opportunities that lie ahead of us like the our ocean. We refuse to let go of
what we consider to be “mine” and miss the chance to hold hand with others so
that “yours” and “mine” can become “ours”.

As we stand at the threshold of 2013, we must ask
ourselves if we are willing to let go of what has become comfortable and safe,
in order to venture into the unknown.

An amazing journey lies ahead for our nation over the
next two years. It may end in disaster, but it could just be a successful
endeavour.

Whichever direction this journey takes us, are we willing
to travel together as we search for that island of hope on which we all wish to
life?